CULTURAL PROOF OF MAN'S ANTIQUITY 



29 



him, chanced to look up at the low ceiling and there beheld polychrome 

 figures of strange animals. Her cry of excitement brought the father, 

 who seemed to divine from the beginning the true meaning of these 

 remarkable figures. The next year Sautuola published a paper on the 

 subject. The palaeontologist, Harle of Bordeaux, came to see but went 

 away unconvinced. Sautuola's paper, received with skepticism by the 

 scientific world, was forthwith forgotten. In 1895 Riviere found engraved 

 figures on the cavern walls of La Mouthe (Dordogne). The next year 

 Daleau found similar figures at Pair-non-Pair (Gironde), which was fol- 

 lowed in turn by still more important discoveries at Les Combarelles and 

 Font-de-Gaume (Dordogne), the latter containing polychrome figures 



Rock shelter of La Ferrassie (Dordogne), extending from the roadway to a point corre- 

 sponding to the extreme right in the picture. Only a small portion has been excavated 



exactly like those at Altamira. Sautuola died without knowing that the 

 authenticity of the Altamira frescoes had been confirmed by similar ones in 

 France. There is a street named in his honor at Santander but his most 

 enduring monument will be Altamira. 



The cumulative evidence in favor of the authenticity of these palaeolithic 

 wall engravings and frescoes is now overwhelming. Briefly it is this: The 

 animals represented belong to species either extinct or no longer to be found 

 in those regions. The floor deposits are of palaeolithic age and these contain 

 figures in the round, in relief or engraved, representing the same fauna and 

 in the same style of art. Some of the mural decorations were covered by 

 accumulated floor deposits of palaeolithic age (Pair-non-Pair, La Greze, 



